Addiction & Substance Use Therapist in Ontario

You don't need to hit “rock bottom” before asking for help.

Jennifer supports adults at different stages of change — whether you're questioning your relationship with alcohol or other substances, considering cutting back, working toward abstinence, returning to recovery after a setback, or trying to maintain changes you've already made.

Her approach recognizes that substance use rarely exists in isolation. Together, you can explore the emotions, relationships, experiences, habits, and needs that may sit underneath substance use while developing practical strategies for change.

Rather than imposing a predetermined definition of recovery, Jennifer works collaboratively with you to understand what you want to change and why it matters to you.

Stopping or reducing substance use can be one part of recovery. Building a life that makes change sustainable is another.

Jennifer helps clients identify triggers, recognize early warning signs, understand high-risk situations, strengthen coping strategies, and develop a personalized relapse-prevention plan.

Therapy can also explore what happens after the immediate crisis has passed: rebuilding routines, managing difficult emotions, navigating relationships, developing new sources of meaning and connection, and learning how to respond to setbacks without turning them into reasons to give up.

Recovery doesn't have to mean perfection.

It can mean developing the ability to notice when you're struggling and knowing what to do next.

Substance use can sometimes become a way of surviving experiences that were overwhelming, painful, or never fully processed.

Jennifer's trauma-informed approach recognizes that behaviours often make more sense when we understand what they have been helping you manage.

Rather than asking, “What's wrong with you?”, therapy becomes curious about:

“What happened, what did you need to survive it, and what do you need now?”

Jennifer works collaboratively and at your pace, prioritizing safety and stabilization while helping you understand how past experiences may continue to affect your emotions, relationships, coping patterns, and sense of self.

Depression and substance use can become deeply interconnected.

You might use substances to escape sadness, numbness, loneliness, shame, boredom, or hopelessness — only to find that the aftermath makes those feelings even harder to manage.

Jennifer works with clients experiencing persistent low mood, loss of motivation, disconnection, self-criticism, and difficulty finding meaning or enjoyment.

Therapy focuses not only on reducing symptoms, but also on understanding what may be contributing to them and gradually rebuilding connection with yourself, other people, and the parts of life that matter to you

For some people, substances become one of the fastest ways to quiet an anxious mind, escape overwhelming emotions, feel more comfortable socially, or temporarily stop thinking.

If anxiety, panic, worry, emotional reactivity, or chronic overwhelm are part of what keeps a substance-use cycle going, therapy can address both.

Jennifer offers a steady, grounded space to understand your triggers, recognize patterns, build emotional regulation skills, and develop additional ways of responding when things feel difficult.

Addiction doesn't only affect the person using substances. It can affect trust, intimacy, communication, finances, responsibilities, boundaries, and the emotional safety of a relationship.

Jennifer offers couples therapy for partners navigating substance use, addiction, recovery, and the relationship patterns that can develop around them.

Therapy may help couples explore:

• Communication and recurring conflict
• Trust and rebuilding safety
• Boundaries and expectations
• The impact of substance use on the relationship
• Supporting recovery without taking responsibility for another person's recovery
• Shame, resentment, fear, and emotional disconnection
• Adjusting to relationship changes during recovery

The goal isn't to decide who is the problem.

It's to understand the cycle the relationship has become caught in and create opportunities for both partners to respond differently.

Major life changes — a new role, the end of a relationship, a shift in identity, changes in recovery, career transitions, or simply realizing that your old way of living no longer fits — can leave you feeling uncertain about what comes next.

Jennifer helps clients slow down, clarify what matters, and explore the beliefs, expectations, and fears that may be shaping their decisions.

Therapy can become a space to ask not only:

“What am I supposed to do?”

but also:

“What kind of life do I actually want to build?”

Jennifer brings experience working with adults in a specialized intensive treatment setting for substance use disorders. This gives her insight into the realities of addiction, treatment, relapse prevention, and the ongoing work of recovery.

You don't need to arrive completely ready to change.

Jennifer uses a collaborative approach that respects ambivalence and helps you discover your own reasons for moving forward rather than imposing someone else's definition of what you should do.

Substance use is often only one part of the story.

Jennifer helps clients explore the trauma, emotions, relationships, stress, beliefs, and unmet needs that may contribute to the cycle — while also developing practical strategies for change.

Whether you're changing your own relationship with substances or trying to rebuild a relationship affected by addiction, Jennifer can work with both individuals and couples.

Jennifer's style is authentic, direct, compassionate, and free of unnecessary clinical distance. She'll support you while also helping you look honestly at patterns that may no longer be serving you.